Category: Web

Blogging, Internet

Google throws a hissy fit

Everybody in the world has to deal with Google-stalkers, except Google’s CEO, of course: CNETNews.com, a technology news Web site, said last week that Google had told it that the company would not answer any questions from CNET’s reporters until July 2006. The move came after CNET published an article last month that discussed how … Continue reading “Google throws a hissy fit”

Everybody in the world has to deal with Google-stalkers, except Google’s CEO, of course:

CNETNews.com, a technology news Web site, said last week that Google had told it that the company would not answer any questions from CNET’s reporters until July 2006. The move came after CNET published an article last month that discussed how the Google search engine can uncover personal information and that raised questions about what information Google collects about its users.

The article, by Elinor Mills, a CNET staff writer, gave several examples of information about Google’s chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, that could be gleaned from the search engine. These included that his shares in the company were worth $1.5 billion, that he lived in Atherton, Calif., that he was the host of a $10,000-a-plate fund-raiser for Al Gore’s presidential campaign and that he was a pilot.

After the article appeared, David Krane, Google’s director of public relations, called CNET editors to complain, said Jai Singh, the editor in chief of CNETNews.com. “They were unhappy about the fact we used Schmidt’s private information in our story,” Mr. Singh said. “Our view is what we published was all public information, and we actually used their own product to find it.”

Google was supposed to be committed to not being evil, but this act of childish malice belies that claim.

Gee, I wonder if they’re going to demote my site again for saying this. Oh well.

The Internet’s falling apart

It’s not just China that’s whacking the Internet, its under constant attack by hackers and spammers and mis-configured routers. See this insightful article in the Washington Post quoting the people who know: “The Internet is stuck in the flower-power days of the ’60s during which people thought the world would be beautiful if you are … Continue reading “The Internet’s falling apart”

It’s not just China that’s whacking the Internet, its under constant attack by hackers and spammers and mis-configured routers. See this insightful article in the Washington Post quoting the people who know:

“The Internet is stuck in the flower-power days of the ’60s during which people thought the world would be beautiful if you are just nice,” said Karl Auerbach, a former Cisco Systems Inc. computer scientist who volunteers with several engineering groups trying to improve the Internet…

“The problem with the Internet is that anything you do with it now is worth a lot of money. It’s not just about science anymore. It’s about who gets to reap the rewards to bringing safe technologies to people,” said Daniel C. Lynch, 63, who as an engineer at the Stanford Research Institute and at the University of Southern California in the 1970s helped develop the Internet’s framework…

“All this was an experiment. We were trying to figure out whether this technology would work. We weren’t anticipating this would become the telecommunications network of the 21st century,” said Vinton G. Cerf, 62, who with fellow scientist Robert T. Kahn, 66, helped draft the blueprints for the network while it was still a Defense Department research project.

Even as he marveled at the wonders of instant messaging, Napster and other revolutionary tools that would not have been possible without the Internet, Leonard Kleinrock, 71, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles who is credited with sending the first message — “lo,” for “log on” — from one computer to another in 1969, began to see the Internet’s dark side. “Right now the Internet is running amok and we are in a very difficult period,” Kleinrock said.

Consequently, an effort is underway to engineer a more robust and resilient Internet2.

Meanwhile back in Flower-Power land, the ersatz civil libertarians and misguided idealists insist all is well. If only they knew the half of it.

Latest in WLAN Switch Protocol wars

So Aruba and Trapeze have decided not to roll over and play dead while Cisco tramples the wireless switch industry: Aruba Wireless Networks and Trapeze Networks Inc. submitted SLAPP (Secure Light Access Point Protocol) to a group in the Internet Engineering Task Force known as CAPWAP (Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points). The group … Continue reading “Latest in WLAN Switch Protocol wars”

So Aruba and Trapeze have decided not to roll over and play dead while Cisco tramples the wireless switch industry:

Aruba Wireless Networks and Trapeze Networks Inc. submitted SLAPP (Secure Light Access Point Protocol) to a group in the Internet Engineering Task Force known as CAPWAP (Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points). The group has worked on a switch-to-access-point protocol for more than a year. The deadline for submitting drafts to CAPWAP was March 31, and the companies barely made the deadline.

This was sort of a desperate move, but what the hell.

Give him the chair

Sploid says: A man convicted in the nation’s first felony case against illegal spamming was sentenced to nine years in prison Friday for bombarding Internet users with millions of junk e-mails. He got off too easy.

Sploid says:

A man convicted in the nation’s first felony case against illegal spamming was sentenced to nine years in prison Friday for bombarding Internet users with millions of junk e-mails.

He got off too easy.

Google Ad Sense

I’m trying out Google Ad Sense to see if can generate a little more revenue from this blog, and my first impression is that it’s pretty weird. For openers, the e-mail that Google sent me saying I was approved for the program was classified by Gmail as spam. This is what they mean by “the … Continue reading “Google Ad Sense”

I’m trying out Google Ad Sense to see if can generate a little more revenue from this blog, and my first impression is that it’s pretty weird. For openers, the e-mail that Google sent me saying I was approved for the program was classified by Gmail as spam. This is what they mean by “the left hand not knowing whose nose the right hand is picking.”

And for another, Google selects a completely different set of ads for this blog depending on whether it’s accessed from mossback.org or from bennett.com/blog; same blog, different URLs; one thinks I’m a liberal and the other a conservative. They’re both half right.

Apparently we’re seeing some of the fruits of machine “intelligence” at work.